4 Replies

Honestly it’s kinda hard to even make out the artwork because it’s so dark. But I think you may have been a little too reliant on the photoshop bells and whistles because this doesn’t seem to be rendered in a consistent way from element to element. I think I find myself giving this same critique often in the forum, but I think it’s a really important aspect of designing, your design has to be cohesive, all the elements have to feel like they fit together stylistically.

You have a very 3-dimensional looking grenade, the wood elements and leaves all look fat, there’s no consistency to how things are lit, those leaves look like they’re glowing, the way that bright green of the leaves outlines the grenade really makes them lose any sense of depth. The blood on that leaf is not behaving like liquid should on a leaf.

Overall, colorwise I think it’s a little too muddy and drab. Concept-wise, I know you were going for something open to interpretation, but for something you expect to be on a shirt I think you should try going for something that is more clearly defined. We’re talking commerce here, you want to play on people’s impulse, you want to present something they immediately want to buy. A piece of art that’s going to make people ask questions and come up with their own interpretations is nice to have up in a gallery, but it’s not necessarily going to make people pull out their credit/debit card to buy a shirt on a website. Esoteric messages don’t sell as well as things that immediately resonate… unless your esoteric message just so happens to look really really appealing on a shirt. So keep that in mind when designing.

I think you have some skill, my advice would be to pull back on the photoshop a little bit, come up with a really good concept, and focus more on your illustrative skills. For most people it takes a lot of trial and error before they get a print, so good luck. Hope you get there eventually.

@thestray WOW. Thanks for your critique! I just had a glimpse on your artwork and i got to admit they are pretty fly! For a young sparetime artist like me it’s really helpful to get advice by skilled artist. I really appreciate that! Thank you for your interest/effort! I will try to do much better next time, having in mind what you just wrote.
I will start over on a new design next week probably. Would you mind to give me some critique again?

I’m not all that, haha, but thanks. I never mind giving a thorough critique when I’ve got one in me, I know getting critiqued by my peers was very helpful to me starting out and still is. So don’t worry about it, I’ll definitely share my thoughts when I can.